


Last the Night

by chii_kakumei



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: 5 Times, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 19:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13596834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chii_kakumei/pseuds/chii_kakumei
Summary: Kusanagi treats him with too much kindness.Yusaku drowns.





	Last the Night

This is the first time:

Kusanagi smiles at him, and something in him twists uncomfortably. It flutters long after Kusanagi turns away, back to his work at the grill. Yusaku stares at his half-eaten hot dog until the feeling finally goes away, until the day feels normal again. He doesn't know what to do with this emotion he's never felt. Yusaku thinks that maybe it's something precious. So he files it away for a while, doesn’t think about it. But he doesn’t forget. That’s not in his nature. He can’t forget, anyway. Not when it starts to happen again and again, dominoes falling down in a chain he’s powerless to stop.

 

This is the second time:

Kusanagi catches him as he falls out of Link Vrains. That Knight of Hanoi has just been an ignorant pawn, but he’d insinuated just enough to make Yusaku’s head start to ring. He grabs onto the side of the van where the uplink room meets the back, but it’s not quite enough to steady himself. Yusaku hardly even sees Kusanagi move, but one second he's in his chair and the next he's there, laying his hands steadying on the outsides of his shoulders. The touch is warm and undeniably real. It’s not often these days he feels he needs an anchor to the world around him, but that single touch is everything his pride wouldn’t let him ask for.

Kusanagi’s hand lingers long after Yusaku doesn’t need it anymore. But he doesn’t brush it away. When it finally does leave, gone off to make him something warm to drink, the phantom weight of it stays. He’s glad for it, and remembers it fondly even after it fades.

“You’re okay?” Kusanagi asks.

Yusaku nods, hands curled around the mug Kusanagi brought him. “I’m fine.”

He is now.

 

The next time it happens, he doesn’t have to ask either. It’s kind of nice. Like he’s understood. He’ll never wish to feel like he’s back in that white room again, but he doesn’t… he doesn’t fear it quite so much anymore.

 

This is the third time:

He seeks out Kusanagi on the nights he can't sleep. He never wants to talk about the reasons why, and Kusanagi knows well enough not to ask. Sometimes all they do is work together in the kind of tired silence that the early morning hours bring. Other times Kusanagi is already asleep, splayed out across the folding cot or head down before the computer screens.

This time is the latter. Kusanagi has never minded Yusaku’s presence while he’s sleeping, so Yusaku takes a seat at the counter and picks his work back up. 

He doesn’t get far, even with the reassurance of another person at his back. Because he’s been thinking. The words that Yusaku would use to define his own emotions are rough. Most of them are angry, or bitter, or hurt. He thinks that maybe instead of ruining his life, the Lost Incident ruined him. Is there even a difference?

But still. He knows what this feeling is. The new one, the twist and the warmth. It's safety. Kusanagi, like no one else, is a person he can let down his guard around. The person he can be most “himself” around, whoever that person is beneath the purpose that brought them together in the first place.

Yusaku goes back to work. He doesn’t get very far. But for tonight… Just for tonight, it doesn’t really matter. He falls asleep at his chair. When he wakes in the morning, head in his arms where he’d laid it to rest his eyes a moment, there's a coat draped around his shoulders, warm with his body heat but smelling of someone else.

Kusanagi himself is asleep in a similar state as Yusaku woke, with his head in his arms at the console. Yusaku rests his head back in his arms and just watches a while. He doesn't like being idle.

But this is nice. 

 

This is the fourth time:

Yusaku does not often cry. In those early days, when emotions were a very distant thing, Yusaku thought he had no more tears to shed. Now he's mastered the art of stoicism, and let his anger take over all the sadness he might start to feel.

Unfortunately, it’s not a foolproof system.

He can handle his dreams showing him memories. He can handle his dreams throwing him back into the dark spaces of his life, taunting him with the reminder of the way it hurt him back then. He didn’t know that there was something even worse that his dreams could throw at him.

“Yusaku!?” Kusanagi sounds immediately worried when Yusaku opens the door. So it’s the former today, when Kusanagi is up far, far later than anyone should be.

He doesn’t want Kusanagi to see this. Not really. Not when even he’s a little horrified by his own reaction. It was just a dream. Just a dream with its imperfect logic. Just a dream like he’s been dealing with all his life.

“Come here,” Kusanagi says, and it’s like Yusaku is pulled to him by a magnetic force. He can’t resist, so he just falls into Kusanagi’s open arms. He cries silent into Kusanagi’s shoulder, shaking off the traces of a nightmare where he lost the very last thing he had. One of Kusanagi’s hands lands in his hair. “It’ll be okay, Yusaku.”

He knows. It doesn’t mean he hates this weakness of his any less, and hate showing it most of all. But he also knows that Kusanagi will never think badly of him for it. He calms down quickly, and Kusanagi ruffles his hair affectionately.

“See? Just fine,” he says with a smile, and the twist comes again. But now it’s stronger than any time before, amplified by the lingering loss from the dream. Yusaku grabs the feeling right and doesn’t let go.

 

This is the fifth time:

He's never even thought about it, before. It doesn't matter. Without realizing it, for so long he's wanted… 

It’s a normal day. A day without Hanoi, without abnormalities. Kusanagi’s just begun to close up shop for the day, and Yusaku’s brought in his folding chair. Yusaku slips it back in its place and takes a step away just as Kusanagi turns away from the sink. The result is they collide awkwardly, Kusanagi’s shoulder smacking into Yusaku’s chest and pushing too far into his personal space.

“Ah, sorry,” Kusanagi says, and starts to step backwards. But Yusaku doesn’t let him. Before he knows what he’s doing, Yusaku grabs Kusanagi’s wrist and pulls him forwards. “Yusaku, wha-“

He tilts his head up and kisses Kusanagi. It's not skilled, and it's not planned and confident, the way Yusaku might’ve wanted to do it if he’d had the time to think about it.

What it is is a little desperate, like if Yusaku doesn't manage it now then he very well may never. For a brilliant half-second Kusanagi reciprocates, and Yusaku floats on the feeling blooming through his chest. Then, after that half-second, Kusanagi pulls back.

“Yusaku, wait a second-” Kusanagi is being responsible about this. Yusaku understands. Yusaku also doesn't care.

He pulls Kusanagi down by the folds of his sweatshirt for another kiss and smothers the protests with his lips.

He swears off human kindness, the interactions and connections that others seek to have. But if he can have this- if he can just have  _ this _ \- then he doesn't need anything else.

He has love. He’s not letting it go so easily.

 

Would he have fallen in love with anyone, if they'd just been there for him? He thinks about it once, and it brings him to a single question.

What is love?

And to Yusaku… It’s safety. It’s support. It’s seeing someone at their very weakest and knowing that it doesn’t make their strength any lesser. It’s being able to rely on someone no matter the hour, no matter the reason. It’s wanting to know someone inside and out. It’s understanding.

Plenty of people have reached out a hand to him, before. But he’s never felt even a fraction of this for anyone else. He thinks he might not ever. And honestly? Yusaku wouldn’t mind that at all.

 

This is… Yusaku has lost count.

Kusanagi’s come to spend some time in his apartment, lately. They just work in comfortable silence, or sometimes eat and talk. Yusaku is glad for it, because it’s the only time his apartment ever really feels like a home.

Today they work side by side on Yusaku’s bed, trying to finish off a piece of the support system Kusanagi’s been working on for ages now. Or rather… They did work.

Their laptops have long been closed and set on the floor beside the bed. 

Yusaku breaks away from a long kiss breathing hard. There’s a spark in his eye and he knows it. He doesn’t bother to hide his intentions. Yusaku fumbles with the edges of Kusanagi’s sweatshirt, and Kusanagi leans back to catch his wrists. “Yusaku-”

“Please.” It’s a single word, but the implication is so much more.  _ I want this. _

“Absolutely not,” says Kusanagi, but it lacks conviction. He makes no move to pull away from Yusaku’s reaching hands. 

“Please,” Yusaku repeats, with the same determination that’s seen him through his toughest nights.  _ I know you want this too. _

Kusanagi sighs, and leans down. He kisses Yusaku again, dropping his wrists to let his hands roam.

Yusaku drowns, that night. He takes Kusanagi down with him.


End file.
